Innovative Approaches in Social and Behaviour Change Communication

When it comes to changing deeply rooted human behaviours – whether it’s getting communities to adopt hand-washing, reducing the spread of HIV, or encouraging families to vaccinate their children – simply handing out pamphlets or broadcasting a public service announcement rarely works. People’s behaviours are shaped by a complex web of personal beliefs, social norms, cultural values, and environmental barriers. This is precisely why Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) relies not on a single tactic, but on a diverse set of strategic approaches. Each approach targets different layers of influence, from the individual to the community to the policy level, working together to create lasting, meaningful change.

What makes SBCC strategic? 🔗

SBCC is fundamentally different from one-way information campaigns. It is an interactive, evidence-based process that uses communication to promote positive changes in knowledge, attitudes, social norms, and behaviours. The word “strategic” is key here – every SBCC initiative begins with formative research, careful audience segmentation, pre-testing of messages, and a deliberate selection of communication channels. The goal is not just awareness; it is sustained behaviour change across individuals, communities, and institutions.

What sets SBCC apart is its use of a socio-ecological model. This model recognises that behaviour change does not happen in a vacuum. A person’s actions are influenced by their own knowledge, their family and peer networks, the community they live in, and the broader policy environment. Effective SBCC programmes address all these levels simultaneously, using a combination of strategic approaches tailored to specific audiences and contexts.

Social marketing: selling behaviour, not products 🔗

Social marketing borrows principles from commercial marketing – audience research, branding, positioning, and segmentation – but applies them to promote socially beneficial behaviours rather than commercial products. The aim is to make the desired behaviour appealing, accessible, and affordable for the target audience.

A well-known example is anti-drunk-driving campaigns, which have used powerful messaging, advertising, and public service announcements to reach large populations and shift behaviour on a massive scale. Social marketing works because it frames behaviour change as a value exchange: the audience gives up an old habit and receives a tangible benefit in return, whether that is improved health, social approval, or financial savings.

Key elements of social marketing in SBCC 🔗

Social marketing campaigns in SBCC typically involve identifying a specific behaviour to promote or discourage, understanding the target audience’s motivations and barriers, crafting messages that resonate emotionally, and selecting channels that maximise reach. The approach treats the audience not as passive recipients but as consumers who need to be convinced of the value of change. This is why campaigns such as India’s Pulse Polio initiative or global hand-washing with soap promotions have been so effective – they made the desired behaviour feel normal, desirable, and easy to adopt.

Health promotion and communication 🔗

Health promotion is one of the most established pillars of SBCC. It uses communication as either an educational or norm-forming strategy to help people make informed decisions about their health. Unlike social marketing, which often focuses on specific behaviours, health promotion takes a broader view, addressing the conditions and environments that shape health outcomes.

In practice, health promotion within SBCC involves mass media campaigns about disease prevention, interpersonal counselling by trained health workers, community outreach programmes, and school-based health education. A wide range of strategies use communication to reduce the risk of diseases like HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis, with specific approaches designed for high-risk populations such as young people, women, and injecting drug users.

The role of interpersonal communication 🔗

Among all the channels available, interpersonal communication (IPC) is often considered the most powerful. It involves one-on-one or small group conversations with trained communicators such as health workers, peer educators, or religious leaders. The SBCC Implementation Kits by the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs emphasise that IPC is especially effective for sensitive topics like family planning or sexual health, where trust and privacy are essential. When a community health worker sits with a new mother to discuss infant nutrition, the impact of that personal interaction far outweighs what a billboard could achieve.

Entertainment education: learning through stories 🔗

Entertainment education (EE) is one of the most creative and effective strategic approaches in SBCC. It involves deliberately embedding educational and social messages into entertainment content – TV dramas, radio serials, music, street theatre, and digital videos – to influence audience behaviour.

The roots of this approach go back to the 1970s, when Mexican TV producer Miguel Sabido developed a methodology for creating telenovelas with built-in social messages. His family planning-themed TV serials in Mexico contributed to a significant decline in the country’s population growth rate. The Sabido method drew on Albert Bandura’s social learning theory, which explains that people learn by observing role models and the consequences of their actions.

How entertainment education works 🔗

EE works because entertainment engages emotions. When people are absorbed in a story, their guard is down, and they become more receptive to new ideas. According to the International SBCC Summit, audiences observe what happens to characters, evaluate those consequences in their own lives, and then try to emulate the positive behaviours they have seen. This is why programmes like South Africa’s Soul City TV series, which depicted community responses to gender-based violence, were able to increase attention to and action against intimate partner violence.

In India, the radio programme Tinka Tinka Sukh led to measurable improvements in environmental and health practices. Similarly, the Albishirin Ku! radio show in Nigeria, developed using systematic SBCC approaches by Breakthrough ACTION, promoted maternal, newborn, and child health behaviours. Today, EE is evolving beyond traditional TV and radio. Short-form content on platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, along with collaborations with social media influencers, is reshaping how educational entertainment reaches younger audiences.

Advocacy: changing the rules of the game 🔗

While approaches like social marketing and entertainment education focus on influencing individuals and communities, advocacy operates at the political and institutional level. It aims to mobilise resources, generate political will, and push for policy changes that create an enabling environment for behaviour change.

Advocacy in SBCC is not just about lobbying government officials. It operates at political, social, and individual levels and can involve public campaigns, media outreach, coalition-building, and grassroots movements. The goal is to remove structural barriers and create supportive policies. For example, global advocacy against child labour has led to stricter regulations and policy changes in multiple countries. Similarly, tobacco control advocacy – through campaigns for smoke-free public spaces and graphic health warnings on packaging – has reshaped social norms around smoking worldwide.

Linking advocacy with grassroots action 🔗

Advocacy is most effective when it connects high-level policy efforts with on-the-ground community action. An anti-tobacco campaign, for instance, may lobby for higher taxes on cigarettes at the national level while simultaneously running community-based awareness programmes about the health effects of smoking. This dual approach ensures that policy changes are supported by shifts in public knowledge and attitudes, making the change sustainable.

Community mobilisation: change from the ground up 🔗

Community mobilisation is a capacity-building process through which community members – individuals, groups, or organisations – plan, carry out, and evaluate activities to improve their lives. It is one of the most participatory and localised forms of SBCC.

Unlike top-down campaigns, community mobilisation places the community at the centre of the change process. It is built on the idea that people are more likely to adopt and sustain new behaviours when they have been actively involved in identifying the problem and designing the solution. This might involve community health committees leading sanitation drives, women’s self-help groups promoting breastfeeding, or youth groups organising HIV awareness events.

The power of local ownership 🔗

A key strength of community mobilisation is local ownership. When community members take charge of a health or social initiative, the results tend to be more sustainable than when the initiative is imposed from the outside. Organisations like UNICEF have found that combining sustained behavioural change communication with community-driven action – for instance, pairing cash transfers with infant feeding education in Bangladesh – leads to lasting improvements in knowledge and practice among mothers.

Digital and ICT-based approaches 🔗

Information and communication technology (ICT) is the fastest growing strategic approach in SBCC. Digital media – including websites, social media platforms, mobile health (mHealth) applications, chat rooms, and eLearning tools – can disseminate highly tailored messages to specific audiences while also enabling real-time feedback and two-way conversation.

The unique advantage of ICT is its ability to combine the reach of mass media with the personalisation of interpersonal communication. A targeted text message reminding a pregnant woman about her next prenatal check-up, a WhatsApp group for peer support among people living with HIV, or a mobile game that teaches adolescents about reproductive health – these are all examples of ICT-based SBCC in action. Social media platforms are also increasingly used to track and respond to misinformation, which has become especially important during health emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Reaching young people through digital channels 🔗

Digital and social media approaches are particularly effective at engaging younger demographics. Younger audiences consume content differently – they prefer short-form video, interactive formats, and content from trusted influencers. SBCC programmes that leverage these preferences, whether through Instagram reels about mental health or TikTok challenges promoting hygiene practices, are able to reach populations that traditional media often misses.

Community-based media and mid-media 🔗

Not all communities have access to television, the internet, or even radio. In such settings, community-based media fills the gap. This includes local radio stations, community newsletters, folk dramas, street theatre, public meetings, rallies, and even sporting events. These outlets reach people in their own spaces, using languages and cultural forms they already trust.

Mid-media – posters, brochures, billboards, and pamphlets – also plays a supporting role. While mid-media has less reach than mass media, it serves as a constant visual reminder in clinics, schools, and public spaces. When combined with other approaches, community-based media and mid-media reinforce messages and help keep behaviour change top-of-mind for the target audience.

Why a mix of approaches matters 🔗

No single SBCC approach works in isolation. The Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs emphasises that the most effective SBCC strategies combine multiple approaches – mass media for broad reach, interpersonal communication for depth, community mobilisation for ownership, advocacy for systemic change, and digital tools for precision targeting. This multi-channel approach creates a “surround sound” effect, where the target audience encounters consistent messages across multiple touchpoints in their daily lives.

The choice of approaches depends on several factors: the complexity and sensitivity of the behaviour being addressed, the literacy levels and media habits of the audience, available budget, and the desired scale of impact. For example, entertainment education formats are well suited for shifting social norms, interpersonal counselling works better for helping individuals adopt personal health practices, and mass media campaigns have proven effective for large-scale disease prevention messaging.

The future of SBCC strategies 🔗

The field of SBCC continues to evolve. The rise of artificial intelligence is enabling more personalised health campaigns. Social media influencers are becoming key partners in shaping public opinion. And participatory design methods are giving communities a bigger voice in how programmes are created and delivered. What remains constant is the core principle: effective behaviour change requires meeting people where they are – physically, emotionally, and culturally – and using the right combination of strategies to move them toward positive, lasting change.

What do you think? In a world of information overload, which SBCC approach do you believe has the greatest potential to cut through the noise and drive real behaviour change – entertainment education, digital media, or grassroots community mobilisation?

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_and_behavior_change_communication
2. https://sbccimplementationkits.org/lessons/step-4-strategic-approaches/
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertainment-Education
4. https://sbccsummit.org/en/2022/11/15/the-power-of-entertainment-education/
5. https://breakthroughactionandresearch.org/our-approaches/sbcc/
6. https://www.unicef.org
7. https://sbccimplementationkits.org/courses/designing-a-social-and-behavior-change-communication-strategy/